As workers prepare for demonstrations and rallies on May Day this year, various political parties are calling for a change of government. They are blaming the UPA Government for the rising prices. They are asking workers to vote for a change of party and change of policy. They are covering up the fact that capitalism is actually to blame.

The BJP is claiming that if it forms a government it will allegedly bring food prices down. CPI(M) also claims that some alternative policy will solve the problem.

Why are food prices rising so rapidly these days? There are many factors, many reasons. However, the fundamental reason is the fact that production is not geared to filling the stomachs of those who work. It is geared towards filling the pockets of a minority of capitalists with maximum profits. In the USA, bio-fuel production is replacing maize cultivation. Why? The reason is that oil prices have risen so high that bio-fuel production is a source of maximum profits for the American corporations.

Food prices are rising everywhere also because many governments have given up whatever controls they earlier had on import and export of food, having joined the WTO and committed themselves to the so-called trade liberalisation agenda. As a result, trade in food items has more and more thoroughly come under the domination of private capitalist corporations. When private profit is the motive of trade and prices are on the rise, traders will inevitably postpone selling their stocks, because with every day’s delay they can make higher profits. Thus, capitalism is to blame for the hoarding and profiteering that is going on, aggravating the food shortage and rise in prices.

Within the capitalist system, the conditions of the workers, peasants and other working people keeps going inexorably from bad to worse. It has nothing to do with which party is in power. This is to do with the fact that the orientation of economy is not to provide for people, but to fatten the pockets of the financial oligarchy, As long as the capitalist system continues to operate, with the big corporations making all the major decisions on what to produce and in what activity to invest, the economy will remain oriented towards fattening a small minority in society, at the expense of the masses of working people. Hence the working class must fight with the aim of putting an end to capitalism and building socialism in its place. Workers cannot limit their aim to just getting rid of this or that bad policy, while leaving the rule of the bourgeoisie and the exploitative system intact.

If political power is under the control of workers, peasants and other working people, then it will be possible to re-orient social production towards providing prosperity and protection to all the toiling masses. It will be possible to build socialism, a system geared to fulfill the rising needs of the entire population. Working people will not have to suffer from food shortages and soaring prices in such a system.

Hence the working class must set as its aim nothing less than the destruction of capitalism and its replacement by socialism. The immediate step is to build a worker-peasant front to take political power in its hands.